Random Update

Here is what we've been up to lately:

- Yesterday we cleaned out half of the garage.... Ok Kase really did the work and Eliza and I bossed him around. I love spring cleaning.

- I went on a walk with 2 of our neighbors whose daughters go to daycare with Eliza. Eliza kept waving back and forth to her friends on both sides of her. So cute. It was fun. I felt all healthy and stuff. But it took up all of our afternoon "mommy and Eliza" time so I don't think we will do it everyday.

- Eliza's 23 hour EEG test results came back completely normal. We were happy. PLUS she stopped "posing" and we were excited..... until last week when we had an appointment with the neurologist. That very morning she started posing again. The Doc said she thinks she is normal and just wants to see us back in a year. Eliza is trying to drive me crazy.

- Eliza wants to walk really really bad.

- I have created a "Laura night" where one night a week I put Eliza to bed between 7 and 8. Then I go out and do whatever I want. It has been a nice little break for me and I don't feel like I am missing out cause she is asleep anyways. Although, I am tired so I am usually back home by 9:30. ha.

- Work is super busy right now. It is driving me bananas.

- We are trying really hard to be better at reading scriptures every day. I feel so much better when we do it.

- Our 5 year anniversary is this summer. We want to go on a cheap trip together. If you have read down this far in my post, perhaps you would be willing to comment and give me trip suggestions too?

I shall now reward your diligent reading with a picture. It is a little late but it is hilarious:

Photo Session Give Away

My friend and next door neighbor is a great photographer AND she is doing a give away on her blog.

If you win you get an awesome photo session with her.

Go here to enter and to check out her photos.

I hope you don't win though cause I really want to win!

Good luck.... TO ME!!! :) MUAH HA HA. (That's my evil laugh.)

I would like a little cheese with my whine please...

This post may be a little too personal and a little too long. I usually don't write things that are too personal because... well... this is the internet. And I try not to write things that are too long because.... well... noone likes to read super long posts.

So skip it if you want. But I wanted to write this for my records.

I have been in a weird mood lately. I feel like I am at a really weird point in my life. When I was a kid I always dreamed that I would be 1 of 2 things when I grew up: a teacher or a stay-at-home-mom. I wanted to be a teacher because I love to organize and calendar things and I thought that making the bulletin boards would be super fun. Oh yeah and teaching kids would be cool too. I wanted to be a stay at home mom because I wanted to teach my children and organize my home and calendar things and.... I think I could totally make a bulletin board for my home.

Turns out I am neither of those things. Life does that you know. You make plans and they don't exactly turn out the way you thought.

I am OK with not being a teacher. I really love the job that I do have. I love the people that I work with. Plus I don't like public speaking and so teaching may have been a little much for me. I would write more awesome things about my job but for security purposes I cannot. But my job rocks.

I do wish I could stay at home with my sweet little baby. I know that it's not easy to be a stay at home mom. I know they work hard and oftentimes don't get much credit for all that they do. I think it would be hard to not be around friends/co-workers everyday. But I wish I could do it.

If I stayed home, I could spend everyday with my baby. It has been hard lately because Eliza has started sleeping in later, and going to bed earlier. So that means less time with her. I use to think that I would get up and go to work really early so I could get off early and have more evening time with her. But that is unrealistic at this point. If I did that I would miss seeing her in the mornings, miss dropping her off at daycare, and miss nursing in the morning-time. Right now I only see her for a little bit in the mornings and a few hours in the evenings plus weekends. This makes it hard for me to do anything else but be with her when I am not at work. I don't want to go do anything babyless because that just takes away from more time with her. But I know I need to do things babyless because I need to nurture other aspects of my life.

If I stayed home, I think I would clean my house more. Currently I feel that spending time as a family is more important than dusting (or other housecleaning acitivities). Kase has picked up a lot of my slack and I am grateful. The problem is I actually enjoy cleaning and it makes me feel good when I clean. So I begin to miss it when I am not cleaning.

If I stayed home, I would feel less guilty. It is hard to leave the baby. I know that she loves playing with her daycare friends and I know that she loves me and seems to be doing really good. But for selfish reasons I miss every minute I am not with her.

If I stayed home, I might have more friends. I would have more time for the friends that I do have, and I could make friends with other stay-at-home moms and we could hang out during the day. I have 1 friend at work who is a working mother to small children but we don't really ever talk about it. I don't think it really bothers her. I don't really know anyone else who works full time. Ok I do know 1 person but she is so busy we never have time to chat (see above). The people I know either work but don't have kids or they stay at home.

I know I am doing what I have to do. We cannot afford for me to stay at home right now. I know that I am blessed to have a wonderful job that I really love, an amazing husband who puts up with my craziness, and a sweet daughter who I would not trade for anything. I would rather be a working mother than not a mother at all.

But sometimes it gets lonely and then I need to vent. So there you have it.

And because the only thing worse than a really long post (too late to rememdy that) is a post with no pictures. Here is my Junebug hydrating after a walk with her dad:

It's My Birthday Shout Hurray!

So today is my birthday. It is my last year in my 20's. Sigh....

But I won't say I'm old because well... I always look back to when I said that and I think "I wasn't old then, but I am now." Like when I turned 21 I thought I was old, but I was just a baby. It's all relative you know. So I've decided I won't be old until I'm 70. And I may have to re-evaluate "old" at that time as well.

This past weekend my parents and sister came up to celebrate. It was fun. We shopped and ate and visited. I was glad my sister came because she just got a car and I'm sure she was really dying to tak her car out and not come visit me.

Today, I am working but my boss/friend took me to get our nails done. I have never had a manicure at a salon. I have had fake nails but not my real nails painted. It was really nice. And my nails are pretty and pink. But I have already smudged my thumb a lot. oops. AND my boss/friend made me chocolate cherry cake.... YUMMMM. She rocks.

Plus my co-workers are were all really nice to me today and gave me candy and cards. I love where I work.

I feel spoiled.

Kase baked me cupcakes and we're going to dinner. Well, we may go to dinner. I think I really just want to stay home and enjoy my sweet husband, my sweet baby, and my sweet cupcakes.

Life is sweet.

P.S. Eliza's present to her mommy is that she learned to crawl this past weekend! And wave! And she has recently started clapping. I could eat her. But I won't cause I am busy eating cupcakes.

9 Months Old

On Sunday, Eliza turned 9 months old. I can harldy believe that she has been with us for 3/4s of a year! At 9 months she: Smiles a lot... Loves to play.... Wonders about a lot of things.... Studies things closely.... Drools a lot..... Discovered that she has a tongue....She likes to squeal really loundly to get our attention or the dog's attention.... Says 'mama' to my delight but doesn't know what it means..... has 8 teeth..... wiggles around on the floor until she gets to where she wants to go (it is not graceful)..... doesn't hold still for pictures.... starting to sleep even longer at night, sometimes 11 or 12 hours.... can turn the light switch off and then squeals with delight (we are working on turning it ON next).... is much easier to take into public and enjoy a meal with.... is developing quite the little personality complete with sassiness..... is always on the go..... We love you Eliza and can't wait to see what you do next! At doctor's visit she weighed 17 lbs 15.5 oz.

Saturday is a Special Day

Last weekend was nice. Lately I have been lazy on the home front. Normally it bothers me to not clean but recently I have felt that it is more important to spend time with Kase and Eliza than vacuum.

So on Saturday Kase had a project and instead of cleaning the house Eliza and I decided to head out together.

We had a lunch date with a friend and then we shopped. We hit up 4 stores and the best part was Eliza didn't cry once! Not even a little. It was blissful. She was in such a good mood. And she had the cutest outfit on. Every where we went people commented on her cuteness. I kindof felt like a celebrity's mom. It was nice.

Then we met Kase for dinner at subway... for our last Februany (if you've seen their annoying commercials I don't know how you could miss them) $5 footlong of the month. Which also brings up a funny story. Did you know Kase didn't know you spell February with 2 Rs? haha. Eliza was even good for us while we ate. She did try to steal my sandwhich a few times but you can't blame her. It was good.

All of this time out in public places with Eliza made me think of the days when I couldn't take her any where because she screamed all the time and how when did go out I would pray that she would stay asleep so we could get through one meal or one quick store trip.

She did get better. We moved from that phase to being able to make it through one store or one meal. And now I am totally loving this new phase where we can go in public for a WHOLE DAY and it was ENJOYABLE! And she was really CUTE! I am GRATEFUL!

So some chores don't go away and we ended the awesome day by doing a load of laundry. But Eliza did help. And she was really cute.

I love my baby girl.